Should we be learning of relationships through our video game play? More and more virtual worlds are improving the aspects of relationships in their games, to make the experience more realistic. Relationships, however, are the most difficult thing to replicate in a virtual environment. It’s one huge algorithm turning virtual worlds into Choose Your Own Adventure books, where a million different scenarios could result in one misguided action taken against the wrong person.
But I guess that’s how the world works. Every moment we’re alive, we’re making a decision. Each of those decisions could render a series of consequences that affects our lives and the lives of those around us. Incorporating that level of relationship complexity into a game requires a certain amount of artificial intelligence, which is something that’s currently being developed for a number of other technologies beyond those used in virtual environments.
From the military to medical devices, the complex nature of relationships and emotions is finding its way into more aspects of our lives. The way in which we learn is more connected to technology than it ever has been, and certain roles for developing our relationships are being achieved through these virtual environments as well.
We’ve already seen this in various online networks, or even the simple task of sending an email. There’s no body language to read into, and the only cues you’re left with are vocabulary, grammar and formatting. From this, you insinuate a great deal about your personality, which could be misconstrued or right on target.
As online social media outlets become more integrated into the actions we carry out on a daily basis, we’re left with even more rules of etiquette that pertain to a very specific aspect of our regular correspondence with other people. Our children these days are learning how to socialize online and offline in a more conjunctive sense, instilling new ways in which the virtual realm is being incorporated into our social development.
Whether or not this is a good thing remains to be seen, but it does appear to be a natural progression given our human nature and technological knowledge. In many ways, virtual environments are able to bring a global twist on various aspects of our geographic culture, giving us new ways to learn about our own humanity. In another way, the ongoing development of a system that mimics human thought, emotion and response sounds like a frightening plot line from a Jerry Bruckheimer program. And that’s really all I have to say on the subject.
